Hey guys, if the boss told you to pack up for a weekend seminar of treats like getting naked with a bunch of other men, passing around a wooden phallus, and working toward a more “mature sense of masculinity,” you’d get with the program, wouldn’t you?

You know, spilling your guts about those childhood traumas and then storming into the sweat lodge with your new pals, agreeing along the way to a lifelong pledge to keep it all secret from the outside world? Kind of like the way it works at the office for some of you.

When the wise men of Europe’s Far North want to see beyond the merely visible, they bang their noid drums (1) until the rhythm and concomitant incantations prise open the creaky doors of perception.

The skin that forms the membrane of their drums is decorated with cryptic symbols that constitute a symbolic landscape. On this mental map is placed a piece of bone, which dances across the membrane as the shaman bangs the drum’s frame. It is his job to translate the bone’s erratic hopscotchery across this magical universe into meaningful comments on events past, present and future.

An American Indian church is suing state and federal police and prosecutors over the right of its members to use peyote in religious ceremonies, even if they aren’t of Indian ancestry.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Utah’s U.S. District Court on behalf of the Oklevueha Native American Church. It contends that federal laws that protect peyote use by American Indians should apply to anyone who belongs to the church.

Before 1949, most Naxi people were followers of the "Dongba" religion, which was a form of Shamanism. Sorcerers, called "Dongba," were invited to chant scriptures at weddings, funerals, the New Year Day and other festivals. Some of the Naxi people were followers of Lamaism. Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity only had limited access to the Lijiang area.

PHUKET: Sea gypsies in Rawai held an exorcism ceremony on Mai Thon Island recently to seek forgiveness from their guardian spirit.They were hoping to appease spirit Balai Da Toe after two fellow sea gypsies died from food poisoning in June after eating Hawksbill turtle meat.Many others fell seriously ill, but survived the meal.The late-August ceremony, involving the release of three sea turtles, took place at a shrine to Balai Da Toe on Koh Mai Thon.The release ceremony, presided over by sea gypsy shaman Hari Fongsaitan, began at about 10am.